Red Sox lose DH duel in 17th inning

Credit: Kelvin Ma

COOLER HEADS: Red Sox outfielder Darnell McDonald is escorted off the field after arguing a called third strike with home plate umpire James Hoye during yesterday’s 9-6, 17-inning loss to the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park.

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It’s hardly worth the energy to be angry at the Red Sox anymore.

They’re basically the equivalent of a possum dragging its broken legs across the road after getting clipped by a Dodge. The appropriate reaction? Revulsion and pity, at least until the DPW shovels them to the shoulder.

To their credit, the Sox don’t want our pity, but when the story of the 2012 season is written and we’re looking for low points, yesterday’s/last night’s 9-6 loss to the Orioles will rank right up there.

The squads actually played a heck of a game, combining for 18 pitchers through 17 brutal innings. The Red Sox rallied to tie against Baltimore’s unhittable bullpen in the eighth, then got a firsthand look at how unhittable the group actually is the rest of the way.

The Red Sox turned six double plays, including four in extra innings. The Orioles cut down the winning run at the plate in the 16th with a perfect relay from center.

The game ended with a pair of designated hitters on the mound — the first time position players finished a game since Oct. 4, 1925, when Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers and George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns pitched to close out a season-ending doubleheader — and the O’s clearly got the better of that exchange. Chris Davis made up for an 0-for-8 night at the plate by hurling two shutout innings that included two strikeouts (Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Adrian Gonzalez) and a game-ending double play.

The Sox countered with Darnell McDonald, who was touched for two hits and three runs, the game-clinching blow a three-run homer from Adam Jones that dropped the Sox to their fifth straight loss. They’re 4-10 at home and have lost a numbing 10-of-11 at friendly Fenway, which was shockingly empty by the start of extra innings.

Afterward, the Sox looked as drained as they have all season. And they staggered out to catch a flight to Kansas City for a three-game series that continues this death march of 20 games in 20 days.

“We played for five and a half hours,” second baseman Dustin Pedroia said, actually shorting himself 37 minutes. “I don’t think anybody gives a (expletive) about the loss today. We’ve got to come out and worry about tomorrow.”

And who knows what a new game will bring? The Red Sox actually aren’t terrible — terrible teams don’t reach the second inning, let alone the 17th, as the Sox of last September proved when most of their contests were over by the anthem.

These guys at least fight, as the bullpen illustrated yesterday. Sox relievers completed a run of 252â„3 innings in three days with 121â„3 innings of one-run ball before McDonald entered.

“I believe in these guys,” manager Bobby Valentine said. “They’re tough and they were making plays the entire game. If they can’t appreciate the effort that that bullpen gave them today as a whole group and take that forward, then I’d be surprised. I don’t think I’ll be surprised.”

That doesn’t change that the team keeps finding new and inventive ways to lose. Recently, it’s been starting pitching. Clay Buchholz (32â„3 innings, five earned runs) stank to the point of forcing Valentine to publicly declare he won’t yank the 2010 All-Star from the rotation.

The offense lacks production from some of its biggest bats. First baseman Adrian Gonzalez suffered through the most frustrating game of his career, going 0-for-8 and striking out against Davis in the 17th.

But these Sox aren’t terrible. Frustrating, mystifying, confounding, but not terrible. The season would almost be easier to take if they were just flat-out awful so we could shrug and wait for general manager Ben Cherington to depress the plunger on an underachieving roster.

Instead, we get games like yesterday’s, which leave the team dangerously close to being road kill before the season even gets rolling.